Word: monarchal
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...Commons, called Cynthia Thompson from her home (she had retired from TIME'S London staff six weeks ago) to work on a story about the King's illness for the Medicine section, set Joan Bruce to digging up some of the unusual prerogatives of the British monarch, and sent A. T. Baker to Sandringham. Stopped politely by the police constable at the massive gate to the castle, Baker visited local pubs, knocked on strange doors, interviewed storekeepers who held royal warrants and talked to villagers sloshing through wet fields...
...calls a party leader to form a government, but the person she designates must command a majority in the House of Commons. (George III was the last monarch to summon and dismiss ministries at will.) Elizabeth's power to grant or refuse a dissolution of Parliament is real enough, but she would use it independently only in extraordinary circumstances-e.g., if death or strife hopelessly entangled the wheels of party government...
What She Can't Do. Elizabeth cannot vote. Nor can she express any shading of political opinion in public. The last monarch who did that was George III, who in 1780 personally canvassed Windsor against the Whig candidate Keppel. Elizabeth cannot sit in the House of Commons, although the building is royal property. She addresses the opening session of each Parliament, but she cannot write her own speech. She cannot refuse to sign a bill of Parliament. She cannot appear as a witness in court, or rent property from her subjects...
What She Owns. Elizabeth is one of the world's wealthiest individuals. Although a monarch's private holdings (and will) are unpublished, the crown jewels are estimated at up to $140 million, and Buckingham Palace's gold dinner service at $10 million. It is impossible to price-tag the private estates at Balmoral and Sandringham, the library of Windsor Castle and the art treasures of Buckingham Palace. The Queen owns 600 of the Thames River's 800 swans, all sturgeons and whales caught in home waters, the land around the perimeter of the islands between high...
...life story from his own sources-and not to read Carlova. Editorials were reverent without being mawkish. Even McCormick's Anglophobic Chicago Tribune bowed its head: "George VI will be remembered as a man of simple piety, a good man . . . and a model of what a constitutional monarch should...